Argentine Pink Shrimp

Try them; you’ll love them: wild-caught pink Argentine shrimp. I snagged some recently from T & J Seafoods, Kitchener, and they were probably the best shrimp I’ve had in a very long time.

Frozen as headless shell-on, these are cold-water shrimp in the 16-20 range (I believe), a bit bigger than that usual size you might see but not as large as some of the sizes we might refer to as prawns.

Shrimp in general are among the most popular seafood items. Try to get them as fresh as possible (though frozen) because their flavour declines relatively quickly when they have been on ice. The spectacular thing about these Argentine pink or red shrimp is the texture, the sweetness, and the aroma and taste: giving them a good sniff when they are thawed and at room temperature, it is almost like they are little lobsters.

The key to cooking them is pretty simple: don’t do much with them in terms of seasoning and cook them very quickly. I just added a touch of vegetable oil and some salt and pepper and grilled them on the barbecue for mere minutes, just until they turned opaque. When prepared properly, the texture is not chewy or rubbery — they are simply delicious.

Fisheries management is fairly strict in Argentina and there are programs currently underway (brush up on your Spanish). By-catch is declining and they are generally regarded as coming from clean waters.

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“Boyle these shell fishes: then flowre and frye them: then put them into a Pipkin, with a pinte of Claret Wine, Sinamon, Sugar, and Pepper. Take your Ducke boyled or roasted, and put them into two severall Pipkins, if one be boyled, and the other roasted and a little Sugar, large Mace, and fryed toasts, stuck around about it with Butter.”by John Murrell, A New Booke of Cookerie (1615); Cooking with Shakespeare (Morton and Coppolino, Greenwood Press, 2008)